


cupid's chokehold

by jedijarmarcal



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Klaroline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 01:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14391192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedijarmarcal/pseuds/jedijarmarcal
Summary: S5:E1 of The Originals. Just a little piece of me working through Klaus's emotions during Caroline's arrival.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a photoset created by niklausxcaroline on tumblr with the phrase, "I'd probably still adore you, with your hands around my neck

**This post. **

* * *

 

 

It never fails to amuse Klaus how time acts upon a memory much in the same way alcohol does in the present. It softens the details, making a nice vignette of the vividness of a moment: what was once something so vital, so irrefutable, becomes blurred, a weathered carving on a wall that meant  _ something _ , but does it any more? Like mutations on a gene, the memory takes another shape, becomes something else entirely. 

 

At a certain point, one has to ask if what remembered ever was at all. 

 

There are times, however, that you are thrust into a singularity, where the past, present and future all align in a flash before your eyes. It’s the epiphany that transcends the linear construct of time and is the only time Klaus has ever truly felt eternity. 

 

No bloodlust had fueled his most recent batch of kills, only the cold spike of fear in his spine. The notion of karma had crossed his mind at some point in recent years, but he refused to entertain thoughts of Katerina or Tyler any of the countless creatures he had coated in fear and told them to run. 

 

In all honesty, Klaus had pushed away any and all thoughts besides what needed to be done, so when she appears before the blood is even dry on his hands, he can only stare, unable to reconcile the ghost speeding towards him. 

 

Her face is a mix of determination and something else- the elusive mystery always at the edge of her smile, hiding somewhere behind every blink, just begging to be solved- and Klaus is abruptly back in Mystic Falls, and he can’t help himself- could he ever?- because all of a sudden he  _ feels _ . 

 

It is a crime unto himself that Klaus could ever forget what it is to be before her. 

 

Words leave her mouth, and he’s vaguely aware of them, but her hand is around his neck, and the paranoid part of himself that realizes she could find a way to him and his family if she had half a mind to is pushed to the back of his mind, because he is  _ awe. _

 

“Hello, love.”

 

To whom did he speak? To her? To the clutching, floor out from beneath feeling his heart was wrestling with? Caroline- even the  _ thought _ of her name is a whisper akin to prayer- just cocks her head in that intolerably  _ adorable  _ Caroline sort of way, as if to say, “you’re damn right, that’s who I am.” It’s a possessive motion, and he relaxes into the wall, against her fingers, so disgustingly unashamed to be at her mercy. 

 

Pinned against the wall, he can’t bother to feel wrong that he finds the pressing of her fingers into his skin nothing more than a caress, an homage to their time together in the woods of Mystic Falls. Her hands on him is where they belong, and it’s a future he sees so vividly. 

When she lets go, and the air is cool against his skin, he wants to run to her, pull her into his arms and curse her for not letting him stay, for once again leaving him. How cruel she could be and not know the ways in which he is so clearly a wreck without her. Here he was, a dead man suddenly so alive, with his pathetic heart making up for all of its silence, and she turns from him, another pointed look thrown over her shoulder, and begins assessing the bodies around them. 

 

Do they even matter? He wants to scream at her to stop avoiding  _ them _ , just this once, but finds the words lost somewhere in the back of his throat as he watches her face grow pensive, gears turning as she likely plans what to do next with the scene he made around them. And it’s just so comforting, this so typical Caroline move, that he remembers his lines, knows how this scene is to play out- haven’t they already rehearsed this scene, time and time again? She chides him, he quips back. She wiggles her brows at him and he puts off as long as he can before he gives in, because it’s  _ her _ .

 

And this is them.

 

_ Act II, Scene 1 _ , Klaus muses as he saunters to the couch,  _ A Lover’s Quarrel. _

 

* * *

* * *

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just from Caroline's POV.

When she agrees to find him, bring him home, Caroline doesn’t think of the destination- it’s the journey that matters, right? So she focuses on Hope and busies herself with the mystery; pouring over the stories of ‘mindless slaughter’  and whispers of a madman storming through central France like some fairy tale. The pattern is screaming his M.O., begging a question to an answer no one seems to be answering- maybe they’re just not her.

 

What are the pieces that she doesn’t see? A violent, murderous Klaus, is a hurt Klaus, so what caused it? She ignores that thought that wonders if there could be someone else, but it’s been years and she is the one that left even if it wasn’t her that walked away, and _no_. Klaus wouldn’t forget her.

 

Right?

 

 _Come home_ , she’ll tell him. It’s a beautiful line, and she’d say it like nothing, as if home for her and him will cease to be a distant, unattainable thing. The bravado of never having failed a task is starting to slip, compressing her spine, and Caroline fights to keep her head tall. It’s a hubris, yes, but also her lifeboat, because this was the wolf’s den, and she wasn’t sure how long his good favor would extend into their future; there was a time she knew him better than any one girl could know a guy, but that was in the past. No stranger to being forgotten, replaced, Caroline tried to shake her doubts away with the flip of her hair.

 

She was Caroline Forbes, goddammit, and when has she ever let Klaus Mikaelson say no to her?

 

So when she races at him, she doesn’t focus on his shocked face- she can’t, not when her heart is in her throat- and instead wraps her fingers around his neck and slams him into the wall. It feels good, having this power over him, and even if he’s letting her overpower him it’s still her that comes out on top. The adrenaline rush that follows calms her nerves, let her think clearly and say the most Caroline thing she can say to let him know she’s here, and she’s a friend.

 

“Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?”

 

He relaxes into her hold and she wants to lessen the grip she has around his neck and find his face and feel the stubble along his jaw, resurface the memory of that very stubble on her own cheek, but this is not a mission for her or for them, so she remains in control, but just barely.

 

“Hello, love”

  
So many times, she closed her eyes and heard those words in her dreams, and he says them like he’s in on it and it’s their own little secret. Playful Klaus? This she can work with. Letting a smirk through her determined facade, Caroline let’s her hand fall, instantly regretting the loss of contact and knowing full well it might be many more years before she gets that close to him again.

 

Now is not their time.

 

The realization floors her, rips a gnawing hole somewhere in her gut. The unfairness of it all was so cruel, and she whips around, unable to even look at him.For a split second her face cracks into an anguished, silent sob, but before missing a beat she all but runs to the nearest dead body, staring at it like it might just sit up and tell her _something_ to take her mind off of the ongoing march of living in the promise of _perhaps one day_.

 

Behind her, she hears his mouth open and close like the broken singing fish in the Mystic Falls sheriff’s department. There’s something he can’t quite put words to, and it’s cool, really, because what is there to say? She gets it, let’s him take the six slow footsteps to the couch because she too needs those precious seconds to compose herself.

 

There’s a moment of silence, then he inhales sharply. Quickly, she grabs a dust cover and kneels, draping it over the body in front of her.

 

“It’s a pity-” isn’t it though? “-I thought there’d be more of them.”

 

The retort- whatever it is she comes up with- rolls from her lips when she turns to look at him. Everything clicks, suddenly, and she’s just Caroline and he’s just Klaus.

 

Timing wasn’t their thing, maybe, not yet, but this was. The contra of their dance bidding them to be so excruciatingly close and yet kept so far apart.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, feedback is greatly appreciated! Also find me on tumblr: sunnydalecalifornia


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